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It is the most asked question by London Lightning fans and right now it is unanswerable.

When are playoff tickets going to become available?

While the Lightning know their opponent in the first round will be the Brampton A’s, the home team has yet to be determined.

The odds indicate the defending National Basketball League of Canada champions will open on the road, but that isn’t certain.

The A’s hold second place, giving them home-court advantage, but a combination of things could see the Lightning pass them and finish second.

After defeating the Island Storm Monday the A’s would have to lose their remaining three games.

The A’s finish the season with games against Windsor, Mississauga and London.

“We’ve had so many calls about playoff tickets that we would like nothing better than to begin selling them,” said Taylor Brown, general manager of the Lightning.

The other issue is venue availability. The league dictates the best-of-three should be a 2-2-1 format, but the Powerade Centre may not be available on the dates Brampton would like. If that’s the case, then the series would open in Brampton and alternate between cities for single games.

Brown says given the demand for tickets, they would like to be able to begin selling as quickly as possible. The Lightning have averaged almost 4,000 fans a game this year and down the stretch in the month of February, that average has risen to more than 5,000.

No doubt the playoff games will be a hot commodity.

Brown says the Lightning are happy with the fan response.

“We’ve seen some growth in our season ticketholder base and ticket sales,” Brown said.

“Companies are getting on board which is huge for us. A lot of people are already season ticket­holders for the London Knights. When you throw in another entertainment event, it’s another 20 nights when they have to make themselves available with their families. We knew turning people into season ticket­holders was going to take time, so we figured out that a good way to get people in there is to sell them to companies.”

Brown said there are four parts to the business of getting people into the stands: season tickets, walkups, group sales, and sales to companies for employee and client appreciation events.

“Absolutely we are happy with where we are going,” Brown said. “There are a whole lot of people who haven’t been to games but there is tremendous room for growth. People are catching on and the word’s spreading. The toughest part is getting them there.

“In three years, I’ve had very few complaints about our game. You get them there once and next year they may buy three or four games and the next year might buy seven or eight games and then they might turn into season ticketholders.”

Brown says he isn’t sure whether the Lightning will open the upper bowl of Budweiser Gardens for the playoffs. It’s difficult to make a big push to find corporate sponsorship for the upper bowl because of the short time span to organize ticket sales.

Brown says he’s hoping to have tickets on sale by Wednesday but that’s not a certainty yet.